Changes in Arabia

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Its also a matter of relationships. Saudi royals have had excellent relations with most American Presidents since the 1940s, which makes it very difficult to view them as adversaries. Still, the US leadership should do a hell of a lot more than they have to pressure them to improve their human rights record.

The article makes this point as well.

For a long the USA and Saudi Arabia shared common goals so cooperation made sense. Nowadays not so much. What is left? SA doesn´t stabilize the region; quite the opposite. They oppose any rapprochement with Iran. The USA is more or less energy independent. Nobody cares about communism anymore. Tactical support of Israel might be the only area where the USA still needs SA.

Yet despite all this SA is still the #1 ally in the region. Saudi Arabia is still gaining a lot from this relationship. Weapons, diplomatic cover, regional influence, while giving almost nothing in return.

It is quite bizarre and while Obama made some very small but noticeable changes, we all know that the next administration will not follow the same course. It is worth understanding how we arrived at this situation and the articles makes various very good points that have nothing to do with money. Did you actually read it?
 
The article makes this point as well.

For a long the USA and Saudi Arabia shared common goals so cooperation made sense. Nowadays not so much. What is left? SA doesn´t stabilize the region; quite the opposite. They oppose any rapprochement with Iran. The USA is more or less energy independent. Nobody cares about communism anymore. Tactical support of Israel might be the only area where the USA still needs SA.

Yet despite all this SA is still the #1 ally in the region. Saudi Arabia is still gaining a lot from this relationship. Weapons, diplomatic cover, regional influence, while giving almost nothing in return.

It is quite bizarre and while Obama made some very small but noticeable changes, we all know that the next administration will not follow the same course. It is worth understanding how we arrived at this situation and the articles makes various very good points that have nothing to do with money. Did you actually read it?

I think it's just a matter of keeping the Saudis as friends rather than adversaries. Even though the US is more or less energy independent, the Saudis still have a massive say in Opec, oil production, and as such, the spot price; which in turn has a massive effect on financial assets, especially US and European energy producers. The Saudis for the past year or so have refused to cut their output which has contributed to loads of non-Saudi companies, the Russian economy, and created massive volatility in US and European stock markets. This more or less undercuts any attempts to leverage the relationship for gains in governance reforms and improvements in human rights.
 
I am well aware of the situation on the energy market and SA is certainly not acting in the best interest of the USA at the moment. OPEC is de-facto toast. What do you actually mean by "keeping the Saudis as friends"? The Saudis act as friends in a diplomatic context, but when it comes to meaningful policies they don´t follow up. Sure, there are still some boundaries; for example support for Israel or not exporting certain weapons. Still all of that is minor compared to what the USA is doing for Saudi Arabia.
I am not proposing any specific policy to antagonise them for the sake of it. Still it is pretty obvious that their goals and the goals of the West (not some romantic nonsense like liberal values, but actual economic, political and military interests) are very different and we have to acknowledge that and act accordingly.

In areas where our interests are actually aligned, cooperation might still be sensible despite the terrible nature of their regime. I just don´t see it.
 
I think it's just a matter of keeping the Saudis as friends rather than adversaries. Even though the US is more or less energy independent, the Saudis still have a massive say in Opec, oil production, and as such, the spot price; which in turn has a massive effect on financial assets, especially US and European energy producers. The Saudis for the past year or so have refused to cut their output which has contributed to loads of non-Saudi companies, the Russian economy, and created massive volatility in US and European stock markets. This more or less undercuts any attempts to leverage the relationship for gains in governance reforms and improvements in human rights.
Aren't you trying to sweep something under the carpet here? Don't you pretend to be fighting terrorism too? But I guess while you found the courage to admit that you don't care about dictatorships and human rights violations when the price is right, it's a bit too difficult to admit openly that you also don't care about the costs of terrorism (at least so far), because the price is right.
 
Sky had a special report on the war in Yemen. Bombs dropped on homes and hospitals, made in Britain. The western repose to this atrocity is a disgrace. I find it difficult not to get upset by the blatant hypocrisy. What do the Saudis have on the west?
 
Sky had a special report on the war in Yemen. Bombs dropped on homes and hospitals, made in Britain. The western repose to this atrocity is a disgrace. I find it difficult not to get upset by the blatant hypocrisy. What do the Saudis have on the west?
People will tell you oil...but it's not that.

It's because the f-ING Saudis are the counterweight to the Iranians.

Notice how, Israel and the US constantly changes who the biggest evil is....but, Saudi Arabia never gets mentioned?
 
close to 25% of the population in the KSA live near poverty level. the eastern part of the KSA doesn't see much oil money and most of the wealth is kept in the "family". the biggest change is the shrinking money earned from oil.
 
Are the Saudis being accused of participating in 9/11 or what ?
 
Are the Saudis being accused of participating in 9/11 or what ?

In a nutshell, yes (or at least probably yes). There are 28 pages of an inquiry into the intelligence community after 9/11 that probed "foreign support for the 9/11 hijcackers". The report came out in 2002 but the 28 pages in question remain classified, despite the fact that Obama claimed he would unclassify them.
 
9/11 was carried out by private citizens, not the government. The American training/funding of the Mujahedeen was far more pivotal and that was government backed.
 
Just wish the US will realise countries like Saudi and Pakistan are playing both sides in this so called "war against terrorism".
 
Just wish the US will realise countries like Saudi and Pakistan are playing both sides in this so called "war against terrorism".
Exactly.

In fact, US realise this but seemingly turn a blind eye to it
 
Quelle surprise.

Regional interests > transparency, even if it involved the killing of 3000 Americans.
 
I don't know how Americans can stomach this kind of thing. Am I the only one who thinks they need a total revolution of their foreign policy? Obama has tried but the wind he's facing is ridiculous.

Its not too difficult to stomach when the details are redacted from the official investigation results for fear of destabilizing the Saudi relationship. Its high time all of that ends and Obama makes everything public.
 
Sky had a special report on the war in Yemen. Bombs dropped on homes and hospitals, made in Britain. The western repose to this atrocity is a disgrace. I find it difficult not to get upset by the blatant hypocrisy. What do the Saudis have on the west?
Not to mention the cluster bombs used that were supplied by the US, the 'unsuccessful' of which are lying all around the country waiting to maim or kill farmers/children in the fields when uncovered.

And we also have SAM's built in the US in the hands of terrorists in Syria...
 
Nothing will change. I've learnt not to get upset by it. Just feel for the innocent people getting bombed back into the stone age.
 
It is official now. American boots on the ground. Obviously they are just advisors to help the gulf states in their fight against AQAP :wenger:
I was foolish enough to think that we´d need to wait for the next president to make this decision. Hillary really needs to come up with some good stuff to out-do Obama´s "measured approach". :lol:
 
Thank allah Bush and co. whisked all those Saudis safely out of the USA one time after 9/11, when no other Americans citizens were able to fly. Allah forbid they be interrogated. In any normal, transparent reaction to events like 9/11, all Saudi national should have been the first to be interrogated with extreme pressure. But since it was a Bush, they were the only ones allowed to leave. Imagine that.

http://readersupportednews.org/opin...why-do-we-keep-learning-new-secrets-about-911

Why Do We Keep Learning New Secrets About 9/11


There are allegedly more Saudi officials implicated in the 9/11 Report than we thought.
rsn-T.jpg
he pointless alleged cover-up of the role of Saudi nationals in the attacks of September 11, 2001 is starting to come just a little bit unraveled. The Guardian had a provocative piece quoting John Lehman, a Republican member of the 9/11 Commission and a former Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, to the effect that the investigation essentially buried the question of Saudi involvement.

"There was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people worked in the Saudi government," Lehman said in an interview, suggesting that the commission may have made a mistake by not stating that explicitly in its final report. "Our report should never have been read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia." He was critical of a statement released late last month by the former chairman and vice-chairman of the commission, who urged the Obama administration to be cautious about releasing the full congressional report on the Saudis and 9/11—"the 28 pages", as they are widely known in Washington—because they contained "raw, unvetted" material that might smear innocent people.
I, for one, didn't know that a Saudi diplomat had been implicated in the support network on which some of the hijackers depended while living in San Diego. (Why is Fahad al-Thumairy walking around free while shoeless losers who fall for FBI stings get shipped off to the nether regions of the federal penal system?) But Lehman wasn't finished yet.

In the interview Wednesday, Lehman said Kean and Hamilton's statement that only one Saudi government employee was "implicated" in supporting the hijackers in California and elsewhere was "a game of semantics" and that the commission had been aware of at least five Saudi government officials who were strongly suspected of involvement in the terrorists' support network. "They may not have been indicted, but they were certainly implicated," he said. "There was an awful lot of circumstantial evidence."

Allegedly, there was a considerable brawl within the commission about how the material concerning the Saudi involvement was being handled, and at the center of it was staff director Philip Zelikow, whose previous job was as an aide to Condoleezza Rice back in the days when she was proving to be the worst National Security Advisor ever. This always has stuck in my craw, and if the stonewall is falling down, then that's all to the good.

Zelikow fired a staffer, who had repeatedly protested over limitations on the Saudi investigation, after she obtained a copy of the 28 pages outside of official channels. Other staffers described an angry scene late one night, near the end of the investigation, when two investigators who focused on the Saudi allegations were forced to rush back to the commission's offices after midnight after learning to their astonishment that some of the most compelling evidence about a Saudi tie to 9/11 was being edited out of the report or was being pushed to tiny, barely readable footnotes and endnotes. The staff protests were mostly overruled.

The crime against history is ongoing, but it does seem we're edging a little closer to solving it.
 
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Thank allah Bush and co. whisked all those Saudis safely out of the USA one time after 9/11, when no other Americans citizens were able to fly. Allah forbid they be interrogated. In any normal, transparent reaction to events like 9/11, all Saudi national should have been the first to be interrogated with extreme pressure. But since it was a Bush, they were the only ones allowed to leave. Imagine that.

http://readersupportednews.org/opin...why-do-we-keep-learning-new-secrets-about-911

Why Do We Keep Learning New Secrets About 9/11


There are allegedly more Saudi officials implicated in the 9/11 Report than we thought.
rsn-T.jpg
he pointless alleged cover-up of the role of Saudi nationals in the attacks of September 11, 2001 is starting to come just a little bit unraveled. The Guardian had a provocative piece quoting John Lehman, a Republican member of the 9/11 Commission and a former Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, to the effect that the investigation essentially buried the question of Saudi involvement.

"There was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people worked in the Saudi government," Lehman said in an interview, suggesting that the commission may have made a mistake by not stating that explicitly in its final report. "Our report should never have been read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia." He was critical of a statement released late last month by the former chairman and vice-chairman of the commission, who urged the Obama administration to be cautious about releasing the full congressional report on the Saudis and 9/11—"the 28 pages", as they are widely known in Washington—because they contained "raw, unvetted" material that might smear innocent people.
I, for one, didn't know that a Saudi diplomat had been implicated in the support network on which some of the hijackers depended while living in San Diego. (Why is Fahad al-Thumairy walking around free while shoeless losers who fall for FBI stings get shipped off to the nether regions of the federal penal system?) But Lehman wasn't finished yet.

In the interview Wednesday, Lehman said Kean and Hamilton's statement that only one Saudi government employee was "implicated" in supporting the hijackers in California and elsewhere was "a game of semantics" and that the commission had been aware of at least five Saudi government officials who were strongly suspected of involvement in the terrorists' support network. "They may not have been indicted, but they were certainly implicated," he said. "There was an awful lot of circumstantial evidence."

Allegedly, there was a considerable brawl within the commission about how the material concerning the Saudi involvement was being handled, and at the center of it was staff director Philip Zelikow, whose previous job was as an aide to Condoleezza Rice back in the days when she was proving to be the worst National Security Advisor ever. This always has stuck in my craw, and if the stonewall is falling down, then that's all to the good.

Zelikow fired a staffer, who had repeatedly protested over limitations on the Saudi investigation, after she obtained a copy of the 28 pages outside of official channels. Other staffers described an angry scene late one night, near the end of the investigation, when two investigators who focused on the Saudi allegations were forced to rush back to the commission's offices after midnight after learning to their astonishment that some of the most compelling evidence about a Saudi tie to 9/11 was being edited out of the report or was being pushed to tiny, barely readable footnotes and endnotes. The staff protests were mostly overruled.

The crime against history is ongoing, but it does seem we're edging a little closer to solving it.
In the beginning we had no idea Saudis are involved and the bush family were too involved with the Royal family anyway but why Obama is going to veto the law?
 
Saudis exerted 'massive' pressure on U.N. to be removed from blacklist

...

But last month, a U.N. report claimed the alliance was responsible for 60% of the 1,953 children recorded as killed or maimed in the conflict in 2015 -- a sixfold rise since the previous year. They were added to a blacklist of of groups violating children's rights in armed conflict, before dropping off the list again earlier this week.

That's because Saudi Arabia made a threat of a "total rupture" in relations between the Kingdom and the U.N., placing in doubt hundreds of millions of dollars in financial contributions to U.N. humanitarian agencies and causes, the U.N. official said.

There were also suggestions clerics in Saudi Arabia could meet to issue an anti-U.N. fatwa, declaring the organization "anti-Muslim."

The pressure was "massive ... beyond anything ever seen," the official said.

...

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/09/middleeast/saudi-arabia-un-children/


:lol:

Any human rights pretenders?
 
Saudis exerted 'massive' pressure on U.N. to be removed from blacklist


There were also suggestions clerics in Saudi Arabia could meet to issue an anti-U.N. fatwa, declaring the organization "anti-Muslim."


Any human rights pretenders?


Israel should have put a copyright on that maneuver.
 
It's a shite organization and nobody has confidence in it.
 
Human rights watch and Amnesty International now asking the UN to immediately suspend Saudi's Arabia's membership...

UN: Suspend Saudi Arabia from Human Rights Council
‘Gross and Systematic’ Violations in Yemen Threaten Council’s Credibility

(New York) – The United Nations General Assembly should immediately suspend Saudi Arabia’s membership rights on the UN Human Rights Council, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said today. A two-thirds majority of the General Assembly may suspend the membership rights of any Human Rights Council member engaged in “gross and systematic violations of human rights.”

...

https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/06/29/un-suspend-saudi-arabia-human-rights-council
 
$41.49 a barrel - they were hoping for $60 - went down to $50 - I wonder what the new projections are?
 
Short term you never know nowadays. Depends a lot on the dollar, speculation, herding and potential crisis.
In the long run prices will fall even further. There are already a couple of major oil-producing countries, that are not producing at capacity due to turmoil, but this might change at some point. US shell oil production is also very resilient. Better technology and new know-how allowed them to lower their cost quite significantly and they stabilized the output of their wells. They might take a hit due to their high debt (hard to predict; maybe it never happens), but they´d rebound fairly quickly. There is also a lot of uncertainty in the world economy due to the massive mountain of debt and unconventional money policy. Demand won´t just sky-rocket.
For now I´d say it will stay most of the time under 50$ and in the time frame of 2-3 years I can see it come down to 35-38$.

That is all speculation so take it with a huge pinch of salt. It is not even a back-of-the-envelope calculation.
 
Short term you never know nowadays. Depends a lot on the dollar, speculation, herding and potential crisis.
In the long run prices will fall even further. There are already a couple of major oil-producing countries, that are not producing at capacity due to turmoil, but this might change at some point. US shell oil production is also very resilient. Better technology and new know-how allowed them to lower their cost quite significantly and they stabilized the output of their wells. They might take a hit due to their high debt (hard to predict; maybe it never happens), but they´d rebound fairly quickly. There is also a lot of uncertainty in the world economy due to the massive mountain of debt and unconventional money policy. Demand won´t just sky-rocket.
For now I´d say it will stay most of the time under 50$ and in the time frame of 2-3 years I can see it come down to 35-38$.

That is all speculation so take it with a huge pinch of salt. It is not even a back-of-the-envelope calculation.
The debt is crippling many shale oil producers, as many of them were highly leveraged based on incorrect oil price assumptions. It drove the man most famous for it to suicide (speculation, but highly likely) recently.

The US could not operate as a swing producer the way OPEC (i.e. Saudi Arabia) can. Shale oil development is highly manpower/material intensive. It's not a matter of just turning on the taps, even though there are thousands of drilled but not completed wells.
 
The debt is crippling many shale oil producers, as many of them were highly leveraged based on incorrect oil price assumptions. It drove the man most famous for it to suicide (speculation, but highly likely) recently.

The US could not operate as a swing producer the way OPEC (i.e. Saudi Arabia) can. Shale oil development is highly manpower/material intensive. It's not a matter of just turning on the taps, even though there are thousands of drilled but not completed wells.

I agree with all of that.
But when they made their investments and their calculations, their costs of production were also significantly higher. Now you have more efficient processes and even if various companies go out of business, the technology and expertise continues to exist.
It is true, that the USA can´t be a swing producers like Texas/Saudi Arabia in the past, but I also doubt that any country is going to actively take this role. OPEC is done and dusted and Saudi Arabia in a difficult situation and no one else can do it. We´ll see a shift to more free market which could create some volatility, especially in the beginning.
That said my knowledge is very limited and I´d be very interested to hear a more of your thoughts on the issue. Especially on US shale oil and I am definitely willing to change my mind on all these issues.
 
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The debt is crippling many shale oil producers, as many of them were highly leveraged based on incorrect oil price assumptions. It drove the man most famous for it to suicide (speculation, but highly likely) recently.

The US could not operate as a swing producer the way OPEC (i.e. Saudi Arabia) can. Shale oil development is highly manpower/material intensive. It's not a matter of just turning on the taps, even though there are thousands of drilled but not completed wells.


the debt is killing countries.
 
Saudi Arabia resumes Yemen bombing campaign after peace talks collapse, killing 14 civilians at food factory
Fourteen workers at potato chip factory were killed while on overnight shifts

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ian-deaths-peace-talks-collapse-a7180531.html

So...

U.S. approves $1.15 billion sale of tanks, other equipment to Saudi Arabia

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-defense-idUSKCN10K1JR

Arms sales to Saudi are pretty routine - just as they are to the likes of Israel and Egypt.
 
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